Michael Sheen and the Daily Mirror give working class authors 'A Writing Chance'

Writers from Michael Sheen's 'A Writing Chance' project mentored by Mirror journalists see their work in print
As an ordinary kid growing up in South Wales, I dreamed of being an actor.
That might have seemed unusual, but back then I had Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins to look up to – people who'd grown up like me and gone on to be successful. There were more books, films, play and TV shows created by working class people too, from 'A Taste of Honey' to 'Boys from the Black Stuff'.
‌
All that gave me confidence to have a go myself. But in the last few decades, things changed. It's become much tougher for people from ordinary backgrounds to get their stories heard.
‌
Today, half of published authors have middle-class backgrounds – but just 10 per cent are working-class. We know that kids from all walks of life enjoy reading at school, and working-class people are some of the best story tellers out there, so somewhere, somehow, something's going wrong.
That's why I worked with the Daily Mirror to launch 'A Writing Chance', a project to find and support new working-class writers from across the UK. We've already found fantastic storytellers – one, Tom Newlands, wrote one of the big hits of 2024, 'Only Here, Only Now'.
Here you can read some of the work produced by our latest writers, who have been mentored by brilliant Mirror journalists.
It's renewed my belief that as Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry said, "the really successful work" happening at the moment "tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories."
In the future we're going to be publishing more stories like this in The Bee, a new magazine which will be a home for working class writers. I hope you'll read it – and, if you have a tale to tell, maybe write for us as well?
‌
Justice and fairness demand that people from the less well-off sections of society have the chance to tell their stories, and to get them heard. But it's also about common sense.
When we surveyed working-class people who like to read, 63 per cent said that representation was important, and that they'd like to see more people like themselves on the pages. There's an untapped market out there.
Perhaps, most important of all, the most urgent, revelatory and entertaining stories – the ones we most want to hear – so often come from those who are excluded, or who struggle to be heard.
‌
I've always believed that telling stories is an important way to make change in the world – and levelling the playing field for writers has to be a change for the better.
I believe that as we encourage working people to write, they will inspire others to be creative, just as working-class actors and writers inspired me.
‌
Sue Townsend was working-class, disabled, and unapologetically loyal to my community in Leicester. She tackled serious issues with wit and heart – and she gave hope to people like me.
She showed me our lives — council estates, illness, hardship — were worth writing about.
‌
We often hear what's "wrong" with council estates. But what about what's right? Activism, humour, and community resilience were led by women like Sue and my nana Winnie, who didn't want credit. They just wanted change.
Sue wasn't just a writer — she was a movement. Her voice gave working-class people visibility without patronising or exaggerating. She found the extraordinary in ordinary life and shared it with honesty.
Sue moved to Eyres Monsell, a Leicester council estate, in the late 60s. By the early 70s, Sue was a struggling single mum of three young children. When her son asked, "Why can't we go to the zoo like other kids?" the seed of Adrian Mole was planted.
‌
During the 70s, Sue met my nana, Winnie Aldwinckle. Winnie lived on the next estate, known as The Saff, where Sue worked – and was a powerhouse, co-founding the Parents' Association in 1973. Her grassroots activism mirrored Sue's — both women used media to create change.
Winnie regularly contributed to the Leicester Mercury, often collaborating with journalist Adam Wakelin. She even had her column, Winnie's World — a podcast before podcasts. She talked, Wakelin wrote. All voluntary, all for the community.
When the Goldhill Adventure Playground faced closure, Sue and Winnie camped out to protest — and they won. Upon Winnie's passing in 2013, Sue co-wrote her obituary with Wakelin for the Leicester Mercury — Sue's last known publication before her own death in 2014.
‌
She wrote, "If anything went wrong on the estate, we called on Winnie. You had a good chance of winning if she was on your side."
Sue won, too — not by selling out or moving away, but by staying loyal to Leicester and writing truthfully about the people who lived there.
‌
By Sunita Thind
'You smell of curry', 'Sunita, you got a tache, gorilla', 'Oi, Coconut f*ck off home,' were some of the taunts I grew up with. For people like me who have an invisible disability and are from a minority background, this is just a way of life.
But raising a problem in Asian society makes you the problem. 'Chup kar' – keep quiet, keep it to yourself – our elders would say in Punjabi.
‌
In my community, we were not educated on such dirty matters as sex, periods, and other taboo subjects because we were a conservative community.
And nor was I taught at school to be proud of my multiple cultures and heritage, or about the hidden histories of the British Empire, Partition, or India's contribution to fighting two world wars.
But after facing infertility, surgical menopause, hair loss, loss of my ovaries and fertility my family were there to lift me up, including my husband and silver-tipped Samoyed dog, Ghost.
‌
At my beautiful Sikh wedding with my handsome white husband, I finally felt proud of the cultures and customs I used to reject but are part of my DNA.
The men in my family came over from Malaysian and Singapore. My Grandad eventually had a corner shop, my dad worked very hard, long hours at the Brickyard. I loved singing the Christian hymns at school, but when the doors closed it was my family, community and Gurdwara that gave me a spiritual sense of myself as well delicious Indian food.
We supported each other with the food we made, spices fragrant as our souls, bonding over special festivals like Diwali, Vasaki (Sikh Harvest festival), and Guru Nanak's birthday, Rakhi.
‌
If you are Caucasian, you are an expat, if you are a person of colour, you are an immigrant, migrant, refugee. We are still on the outside of the looking glass with our hands and faces pressed against it, desiring belonging.
By Zainab Amer
‌
I write because of my community, not in spite of it.
I'm working-class, with English and Egyptian roots. My childhood summers were spent in Egypt, surrounded by family, food, and laughs. It was also the first time I saw real poverty. It shook me and still does. I knew even then: these stories mattered.
Being a working-class writer isn't easy. The biggest challenge is access - or the lack of it: to resources, networks, and a seat at the table.
I have scrubbed bathrooms, stacked shelves, and balanced armfuls of plates while my feet throbbed. Politicians insist hard graft pays off. But here's the truth: we can barely make rent. Instead, we're rewarded with housing worries, not writing submissions.
Still, what I gain from my community outweighs the setbacks. I've listened to a carer who devoted 10 years to her father with dementia. I've bantered alongside retail comrades - a vital ingredient in surviving a nine-hour shift. These aren't just stories of 'struggle.' They are full of compassion, grit, and humour. As a writer, I try to carry these through every story. Every article. Every pitch.
And as for my Egyptian side? In a time when negative depictions of Arabs are ubiquitous, it feels more urgent than ever to write about what I know: which is warmth, charm, and endless storytelling.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Record

an hour ago

• Daily Record

Abandoned baby found in holdall in car park traces parents on ITV Long Lost Family

ITV Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace will focus on the 'Baby in Pink' Sarah Meyers, its youngest ever searcher. Sarah Meyer will be remembered by many as the 'baby in Pink'. The 24-year-old was abandoned by her mother when she was a newborn baby and hit the headlines after being found in a holdall sitting in a multi-story carpark when she was just an hour old, wrapped up in pink towel and a white shawl. Sarah is now the youngest person to search for a relative on ITV Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace. ‌ Dubbed 'Baby in Pink' by the press at the time, Sarah's discovery was a huge national news story and led to a nationwide search for the mother of the tot. Sarah even appeared on This Morning with a police sergeant, as cops went to desperate measures to locate her family. ‌ Then host of the ITV show, Judy Finnegan, told viewers at the time: 'This little sprog was abandoned in a multi-story carpark. She was barely an hour old, weighing just 7lbs.' However all efforts led to dead ends despite many public appeals and Sarah's birth mum didn't come forward. She was adopted at the age of three months old by mum and dad Jo and Pierre, who already had another adopted daughter, Jess. Viewers of the Long Lost Family spin off will see the emotional journey everyone ends up on when Sarah attempts to find out the truth behind her birth story. The programme, hosted by Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, attempts to help foundlings, which means people who were abandoned by their birth family as babies, sometimes in unusual places including a phone box, a cardboard box or church steps. The upcoming instalment will reveal that Sarah's umbilical cord had been cut when she was found, but not clamped, meaning it could have been a home birth. Baby Sarah was then sent to hospital where she was under the care of a host of nurses who took her under their wing. ‌ Sarah says: 'On the news, I was the Baby in Pink because I was in the pink towel wrapped in the blanket. 'I was named Caroline after the nurse who looked after me and Pembrooke after my car park. It's like a little secret identity of mine. Now my middle name is Caroline." ‌ Sarah, who still owns the town and holdall she was found in, opens up about her close relationship with her own family and says that she and sister Jess were always told they were adopted, as writes the Mirror. She went on: 'I want my birth parents to know that they shouldn't feel any remorse because I've had a wonderful life. But I'd like an explanation because it is something that is missing, to know where I come from. Why was I abandoned?' Sarah goes back to the car park she was found in as part of the episode and is left wondering who would leave a baby in such a busy area. ‌ She said: 'I was an evening baby and 30 minutes to an hour old. So I was literally fresh out of the womb.' She also gets a letter from a police evidence box, which was sent to investigating officers 10 days after she was discovered in the car park. The letter gives no clues, and is typed and unstamped. ‌ It reads: 'Please look after my little girl. I love her so much, but just can't cope with another baby. Thank you to all the police officers involved, hospital staff, and the members of the public for their help. Thank you.' As part of the episode, Sarah is reintroduced to Police Sergeant Wendy Whiting, the first on the scene when she was found and someone who stayed with her case for the duration of its development. Wendy reveals when the baby was found, the person who discovered her thought she'd found a bomb at first. ‌ Wendy says: 'I remember the radio message coming out and thinking, 'Did I just hear that right?' An abandoned baby, no clothes on, we were concerned.' The ITV research team are helped by Sarah's young age and are able to access documents quickly compared to more historical investigations. They soon establish who her birth parents are and find out that her mum was in her late teens when Sarah was born, and already had a child. ‌ However, Sarah's birth mum is not as easy to track down, and doesn't respond to an approach by researchers. Sarah, who now lives in Northern Ireland with her partner Shannon and has a cybersecurity degree, says: 'It's good to hear that she's at least alive and is out there. It leaves the door open for her to come and meet me if she wants to. I'll never close that door. I respect that it's such a big thing for her. I understand that she might not be ready. I want her to see that I've lived a good life and that I'm not angry with her.' There is good news also as Sarah's birth father, who has a partner and a daughter, reveals he never knew of her existence but is keen to get to know her. He stays anonymous to protect the birth mum's identity but is overcome with emotion as he says: 'It's very upsetting to know that my daughter was just left there in that situation. Anything could have happened to her.' ‌ Sarah's birth dad then wonders if his late mum would have seen her baby granddaughter and not known, as she'd worked at the hospital unit where Sarah was taken to. As Long Lost Family fans are accustomed to, there's then an emotional reunion and exchanging of photos as Sarah meets her father and they note their similar physical attributes, and common interests. He says: 'My daughters can get to know each other and we can all be a family together.' Sarah adds: 'I've been waiting a long time, I just didn't think it would be possible. He was as I imagined and more, beyond what I expected. I can't wait to get to know him more. The past is in the past and the adventure is only beginning.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community!

Daily Mirror

2 hours ago

• Daily Mirror

'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'

Former Daily Mirror Crime Correspondent Sylvia Jones tells the gripping story of how she went undercover to snare 'untouchable' gangster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer John 'Goldfinger' Palmer was in the elegant lounge of London's Ritz hotel when the beginning of the end arrived. He was sitting at a tea table with two Burmese opium producers in June 1994, celebrating finalising a £65million-a-year money laundering deal, when a large figure loomed over him and announced: 'Roger Cook, Central Television. We've come to talk to you.' ‌ It was a voice familiar to the 10 million viewers who regularly tuned in to watch television's biggest investigator uncover, confront and pursue criminals and wrongdoers. ‌ And it marked the start of Palmer's descent from a man with a royal-level fortune and a life of yachts, fast cars, Rolexes and helicopters to prison – and, ultimately, his death in a suburban back garden. Palmer, a former gold dealer, had risen to fame and fortune smelting gold bars stolen in the Brink's-Mat bullion robbery 11 years earlier. On trial at the Old Bailey in 1987, charged with conspiracy to handle the stolen gold, he admitted melting down large amounts at his mansion in Bath, but claimed not to know it was stolen. When the jury acquitted him he blew them a kiss. He went on to set up a huge timeshare fraud operation, cajoling or intimidating thousands of folk out of their hard-earned savings and ruling the holiday island of Tenerife with his posse of violent, steroid-fuelled musclemen. ‌ This ruthless 'business model' was essential for Palmer's real activities of laundering ever-increasing amounts of dirty money for his underworld criminal cronies, thieving Russian oligarchs, and other corrupt government officials and politicians who plundered their own countries. The latest series of the BBC drama The Gold fictionalises this period in Palmer's life. Played by Tom Cullen, he boasts to one of his heavies as he steps off a private jet: 'A ghost, that's what I am in England – no passport control, no nosy b****** spotting me in an airport and calling the press or the Old Bill. ‌ 'Because I beat them, you see. The English police – I beat the best they have.' This is where I came in. After becoming the first female crime reporter on Fleet Street when working for the Mirror, I moved to the Cook Report in the early 1990s. During painstaking research for a programme on Palmer, I assembled a mountain of evidence about his hugely lucrative money laundering activities and estimated he had more than £400m sloshing around in different banks in secretive financial centres, including Russia. ‌ The vast Communist state was crumbling as greedy government agents, businessmen and the Russian mafia began to plunder the country's most valuable assets. I traced at least 100 companies, dozens of offshore accounts and business interests in the UK, Europe and around the world, and as far away as South America, South Africa and the Caribbean. Palmer used these companies to move around millions of pounds from timeshare, property, leisure and finance organisations. He mixed this money up with large deposits of ill-gotten cash that swirled around and came out of the Palmer 'washing machine' looking untainted and ready to hand back to his criminal associates – minus his 25% commission, of course. ‌ I informed Scotland Yard about our impending Palmer sting – we called the show 'Laundry Man'. Brink's-Mat detectives whose bid to convict him had failed in 1987 literally fell off their chairs laughing. 'He will never fall for it,' they claimed. Gathering legally watertight evidence needed a very special plan, a sophisticated sting so close to the real thing that not even the streetwise Palmer would suspect he was being lured into a TV trap. ‌ I recruited Buddy Burns, a retired US undercover drug enforcement detective, to talk his way into Palmer's tight-knit organisation. A tough, grizzled Native American who had worked more drug stings than I'd had hot dinners, Buddy was a perfect choice. He posed as the 'representative' of notorious Burmese warlord Khun Sa, then the world's biggest opium producer and top of theFBI's most-wanted list. ‌ He was, Buddy explained in an initial phone call to Palmer's Spanish solicitor, looking for a discreet 'businessman' willing and big enough to handle £30m twice a year from poppy crops. The prospect of the biggest deal of his life was an offer Goldfinger couldn't resist. He took the bait within days. The next vital phase of our elaborate sting involved Khun Sa himself. ‌ Actors, however good, would never be able to convince the wily Palmer. So I sent ex-soldier Patrick King into the jungle of war-torn Burma to enlist the help of Khun Sa – who Roger had interviewed two years earlier. America's most wanted man agreed to help us and dispatched two of his closest aides. I posed as a shady local fixer hired by Buddy to look after the Burmese men. At a smart mews house in Marylebone, Central London, we secretly recorded meetings between Palmer and Khun Sa's henchmen. I handed out drinks and takeaway Thai food to Palmer as he sat cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese men. My real job, however, was to make sure no one stood in front of the secret cameras and to troubleshoot and rescue the situation if anything went wrong. Palmer's bodyguards were never far away so we had to be ready for anything at a moment's notice. ‌ By this time Palmer was so convinced he was finalising the biggest dirty deal of his career that he explained exactly how his money laundering operation worked, which we caught on camera. He was so comfortable that he even revealed he had several 'wives' and girlfriends. 'Just a secret between us,' he added – little realising his real wife, Marnie, and 10 million viewers would soon be let in on his 'secret'. ‌ Once we had a wealth of self-confessed evidence from Palmer, we brought in Roger for the final denouement. It was hot and stuffy that summer's day as I sat in a black cab with the two Burmese men and knee-to-knee opposite Palmer, heading for the Ritz. I had a tape recorder tucked into my stocking top and secured to my suspender belt – the only place our blushing sound man could think of hiding it where it would not show through my light summer clothes. Then, once we were seated at the Ritz at a table laden with gleaming silverware, dainty crustless sandwiches and fresh cream fancies, Roger appeared, followed by a cameraman and several of our colleagues. ‌ Our timing was perfect. Shocked, but trying to hold himself together, the previously untouchable underworld Mr Big staggered to his feet as Roger told him we had filmed every contact he had had with Khun Sa's men. Palmer denied everything as he quickly walked to the hotel exit swiftly followed by Roger and the film crew. But he was no longer the smiling, confident wheeler dealer who had entered the Ritz a few minutes earlier. ‌ He looked pale and anxious as he jumped into a taxi. The cab got stuck at a red light and Roger opened the door and continued his devastating onslaught, egged on by workmen on scaffolding in a side street who had recognised him shouting: 'Go on, Roger! Give it to him, Roger!' When the taxi finally pulled away, Palmer sat stony faced inside, the perfect image of a man who has realised he had just been totally suckered. By this time, detectives were raiding all of his premises and addresses in the UK. Every time Palmer rang his offices, the phone was answered by the police. ‌ The taxi driver later told us he had thrown his phone out of the window in anger. Scotland Yard was staggered by the speed and success of our sting. They used our information as the basis for search warrants and gathered a mountain of documentary evidence that eventually led Palmer to another trial, again at the Old Bailey. ‌ In 2001 I gave evidence against him. He was defending himself and wore a bulletproof vest as he cross-examined me. Palmer tried to convince the jury the sting was a police suggestion to set him up because they could not get to him. But he failed, and this time there were no kisses for the jury. He was found guilty of defrauding thousands of timeshare victims out of millions of pounds and sentenced to eight years. He served four before release. In his later years he lived a much quieter life with his partner Christina Ketley and their son in Brentwood, Essex, where he socialised with a close circle of old friends. ‌ Then, 10 years ago, he was gunned down in the garden as he burned old papers on a bonfire, blasted six times with a shotgun. He was 65. No one has been jailed over his death. At the end of the 1990s, Palmer had been worth over £300m, and the Sunday Times Rich List rated him on a level with the Queen. By 2005, after four years behind bars, he was declared bankrupt, with debts of £3.5m. Goldfinger, it seemed, had finally lost his Midas touch.

Wales Online

3 hours ago

• Wales Online

Married At First Sight icon pays a visit to ‘big, bold and beautiful' Cardiff

Married At First Sight icon pays a visit to 'big, bold and beautiful' Cardiff The reality TV star arrived in the Welsh capital just in time for a vibrant weekend of Pride celebrations Mel Schilling appears on both UK and Australian versions of the popular dating show (Image: 2025 Getty Images ) Married At First Sight UK favourite Mel Schilling made a surprise stop in Cardiff this weekend, and shared her appreciation for Cardiff's Pride Cymru celebrations over the weekend. The relationship expert shared a snap of Queen Street filled with rainbow flags and crowds on her Instagram story, captioning it: 'When you arrive in Cardiff in the middle of a big, bold, beautiful Pride celebration.' This was also followed by a shot of Cardiff Castle with a gif attached saying 'Show your pride', and paired with the song I Am What I Am by Gloria Gaynor. ‌ It's not clear why Mel was in the capital, but her timing lined up perfectly with Pride Cymru, which returned to the city on Saturday for its 40th anniversary. For the latest TV and showbiz gossip sign up to our newsletter ‌ Mel Schilling shared a snap of Queen Street filled with rainbow flags and crowds on her Instagram story (Image: Instagram: @mel_schilling1 ) The 53-year-old relationship expert appears on both UK and Australian versions of the popular dating show which sees strangers marrying each other after meeting for the first time at the alter. She's appeared in 16 seasons of the programme in total, 11 Down Under and five in the UK, and she's hinted that she's got exciting news coming very soon. Article continues below Mel told the Mirror earlier this month "I have some exciting stuff coming down the line. Nothing I can talk about yet but some of it is TV but also moving into other mediums as well so I have a lot really exciting stuff coming up and I cannot wait to start sharing it so watch this space." As well as working on secret projects, Mel has teamed up with Tesco to launch the UK's first supermarket wedding gift registry offering couples a range of gift packages covering off the everyday essentials. The first Pride in Wales took place back in 1985 with fewer than 100 people, but fast forward to this weekend, and thousands turned up, with more people signing up in advance than ever before. ‌ The atmosphere throughout the day was full of plenty of colour, energy and celebration, with families, performers and community groups all taking part in the lively event. Lots of people spoke about the importance of visibility, especially this year with the LGBTQ+, telling WalesOnline that the community is still facing a number of barriers in society. The protest group Cymru Queers for Palestine blocked the original parade route near Cardiff Castle after saying they had tried to engage with Pride Cymru before the event but felt they were ignored. ‌ Hannah, from Cymru Queers for Palestine said: "We contacted Pride, met with them and they ignored us. So we will not stop and we will not rest until we say that Pride Cymru has no ties to the Israeli war machine.' The parade was rerouted, and Pride Cymru later released a statement saying: 'Despite our best efforts to engage with the group ahead of and during the event, the situation on the ground made it impossible to proceed with the original parade route as planned. 'Pride is a space for protest, celebration, and solidarity. We remain committed to creating a Pride that reflects the diversity and voices of our entire community.' Article continues below The celebrations carried on in Coopers Field, with performances from Ella Henderson, Shola Ama, Kimberly Wyatt, Booty Luv and local drag star Carrie Sauce. Whether Mel Schilling was here for work or just passing through, it's safe to say she definitely got a warm, and very colourful Cardiff welcome.